


what wars steal

by tinysmallest



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant Angst, Gen, and greg's trying to keep it together, at the end of Storm In The Room, because it's from steven's pov, but of course we don't see that in the show, by virtue of the fact that he didn't know one was possible, he always seemed like he was trying REALLY hard, it has a happy ending by virtue of the canon so don't feel scared to read it, like the poor man probably wasn't expecting rescue, listen steven was obviously traumatized by being processed into the zoo, that had to be deeply traumatic for him too, to sound cheerful, you can't tell me greg wasn't either especially since
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:33:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23196337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysmallest/pseuds/tinysmallest
Summary: The time the gem war stole a father from his son, and the time the gem war stole a son from his father.There are so, so many scars left behind.
Relationships: Greg Universe & Steven Universe
Comments: 13
Kudos: 83





	what wars steal

_He's gone._

There's a toneless buzz behind his eyes, in his ears, in his head.

_He's gone._

The world falls away and _he_ is falling and he doesn't consider for a second to catch himself, the wind a roar in his ears as gravity claims him. His tears fly upwards.

_He's gone._

He remembers him, trembling harder than he'd ever imagined a father could shake before, an _adult_ shake before, face white and eyes too wide and face twisted in some grimace of what was supposed to be a smile as he assured him he was very proud of him, that he supported him, before he fled as far as he could, only able to get as far as the van. Remembers him tearing through his cds, seeking the one that would calm him down, succumbing to the panic attack after loading the wrong one in. Remembers his father's gasping breaths as the man who had held him and comforted him through countless silly childhood nightmares and insecurities tried to breathe.

All over him, over what they tried to do to him.

_He's not the one they were supposed to come for._

Garnet catches him, frightened, firing off explanations, knowing something happened from the look on his face but unaware what it was. He spills the story to her, every fiber of his being screaming.

He's gone. He's gone. This wasn't supposed to happen to him, _this kind of stuff wasn't ever supposed to touch Dad._

Pearl accidentally stumbles across why Blue Diamond may have wanted Dad, and Steven's stomach drops miles. A zoo. His dad. In a zoo. An image springs to mind unbidden, his father in a cage, gems gawking at him. That one horrifying documentary about abusive circuses that Connie once showed him to explain why she didn't go to circuses without extensive research about the circus first flits across his memory, about whips and chains and tricks for peanuts, and he pictures his father in the place of the animals, and he wants to vomit.

They leave in a blur, Steven taking only minutes to call Connie, rushing Peridot through her explanations about the ship. He misses the importance in some of her words, irritated by her momentary hangup over something silly, the rest lost to him.

He regrets that not even an hour later when his attempt to fix the gems' forms results in sending the whole ship on a collision course with the Zoo. He cries in the empty craft, cries for his father, for the person so cruelly ripped away from his life on earth that he just screwed over a second time by screwing up this mission, and at the same time, crying for his father to come hug him, because all he wants right now is those safe, warm arms.

That need to save him, that want to cling to him, that powers him through the unbelievable pressure trying to glue him to his seat. He reaches forward and just barely manages to save their lives-- the lives he endangered twice over, by requiring them to need to save Dad in the first place, and by rushing the mission and making dumb choices.

The rescue goes a little sideways. He's separated from the gems, staring in numb fear at their looks of constipated horror as they try very, very hard to pretend they're not scared to death in front of Holly Blue.

Steven is terrified when the gems drag him over to the chute, terrified when his struggles do nothing despite all the strength he's gained, terrified when they put him inside. He sits there in grim silence as the conveyor belt carries him to the inner sanctum.

The tiny cylinder robots are a surprise. They don't really hurt him, but Steven can't shake the slime clinging to his soul as they poke and prod at him and take his picture and peer into his eye and then strip him of his clothes. It feels yucky and confusing and gross in a way he's never felt before and has no name for, and the realization it did this to his dad too makes his stomach twist into knots.

That was before the clothes press that he thought for one terrifying second was a crusher and maybe they'd decided not to keep him alive after all.

That was before the earrings that the tiny robots pierced his ears with, the quick, fiery prick of the needle sliding in nothing compared to the gut-wrenching understanding that they just tagged him like cattle.

He was expecting something more expressedly violent, something in line with the cold, dehumanizing process of adding him to the zoo. He screamed just seconds ago at the ceiling that if they wanted to come at him with cattle prods or human horseshoes then come and get some.

Instead, after being flushed down a drain, he finds his father, calm and even jovial, sitting with some other humans braiding his hair, another weaving a flower crown for him, both things a staple of Steven's childhood, something he'd done a million times with his dad.

The adrenaline isn't so easily ignored. He's ready to fight these people. But Dad calms him down, soothes him, promises him that the humans mean no harm, and it's then that he understands these really are just... humans.

But far from ordinary, as he finds out a few minutes later when the earrings start talking to him like a devil on his shoulder as seen in so many cartoons. He didn't think his gut had any more room to twist itself into knots but with each hour and each command, each growing understanding how thoroughly controlled these humans were and how they _liked_ it, another knot is added to his gut.

He eats only to keep up his strength. If the crystal fruit tasted like anything good, he didn't know, because to him it was sawdust. His dad stays by his side, oddly at ease with the casual horror around him. 

Dad's gentle attempt at explaining why the humans aren't upset at being controlled really just makes it all worse.

He expected to find his father beaten and scared and chained up somewhere. It's not what he found, but he thinks of his father being brainwashed into forgetting all about home and feels sick, sick, sick.

Two days. They get him back, they arrive home safely, and Steven spends almost every waking minute of the next week at his dad's side.

He smiles, he jokes, he laughs; he praises him for his bravery and ingenuity and gives him so many hugs. Thanks him for coming to save him.

Doesn't mention it's Steven's fault to begin with, because Dad has always been way too nice to him.

He watches his dad carefully in the coming days, a little confused at how okay he seems to be with the whole thing. He remembers the process of being put into the Zoo, feels the slime on his soul and the disinfectant on his skin that won't seem to go away no matter how many times he showers or how hard he scrubs, remembers the earrings he didn't wait until garbage day to dispose of at the garbage can beyond his mailbox at the edge of the boardwalk where the wood, sand and grass meet, and he can't imagine his father is as all right as he seems, so he watches.

He watches Dad stare out into the ocean sometimes with a blank stare until gently prodded, watches the way his father jolts at being touched or grabbed without warning, watches him strum his guitar, quietly noting the way his hands tremble a little on the instrument, watches how he sometimes feels the little holes where the earrings were with a little shake in his fingers, and sets his jaw.

Never again.

Gem stuff won't ever touch his dad again.

* * *

_He's gone._

Greg sits in the back of his van, numb, numb, numb as the gems haltingly explain what happened. The June breeze feels so cold.

_He's gone._

He knew this was possible. From the day the freaky green hand landed and he learned what the people aboard wanted with his child, he knew this was possible.

_He's gone._

He's gone and it already feels like the world has ended, because his _has_ ended.

Steven had gotten so strong since then. The gems had too. It hadn't been enough. _I should have been there._

He doesn't eat. How does he breathe? He watches the gems try to figure something out and the hole in his chest just gets bigger and bigger.

A rage wakes. _His baby._ They took his baby. He's not a violent man but if he had strength comparable to a gem and that Aquamarine was in front of him right now he's not sure the gems would have been able to stop him from smashing that tiny cockroach into pieces. He's not sure he would be able to stop himself from trying even without gem strength.

The rage vanishes. He clings to vestiges of it, but it won't stay, not without an outlet. And there is none. They have no ship, or he would be going with them. _I'm **going.** To **protect.** My **son.**_

But he _can't,_ because there is no ship and there is no rescue they can mount. They try to fix the warp and he can't even help with that much. All he can do is watch them.

He doesn't sleep. He watches Pearl desperately try to fix the broken pieces of the warp and remembers Steven in his car, the sickly glow of a green ship lighting his face, posing the possibility to Greg and maybe the universe that Peridot will see this world and its beauty and decide to stay, to not hurt anybody.

His son is so sweet. Sometimes it nearly suffocates him, how kind Steven is. Those dark, hopeful eyes haunt the snatches of dozing he gets when his body tries to quit on him, and inevitably, they startle him fully awake, ripping open the wound of reality once again as he returns to a world where he's gone.

Why Steven? What did he do to deserve this?

 _I love you._ His final words. _I love you._ He wasn't even there to hear the last words his baby told his family. _I love you._

He calls Steven's phone to listen to his voicemail to listen to the much more cheerful _I love you_ on it, weeps, and slides the phone away to encourage himself to stop torturing himself like that.

It doesn't work.

They were looking for 'Mydad.'

They were looking for _him._

_Steven, I'd have let them take me a million times more if it meant you stayed home._

Hollow eyes watch the Barrigas in their living room, the other family whose boy is missing, and he can offer no comfort, because there is none.

Seven whole days. A week. He doesn't eat unless Connie comes by to help the gems and shares a sandwich with him. Every once in awhile Pearl quietly passes him water or something from the boardwalk.

If there was anything left in him besides the hollow emptiness of everything missing Greg would be impressed and kind of flattered Pearl remembered his favorite pizza. He eats as much as he can and Amethyst eats the rest and he can tell by the look in her eye it's more for comfort than for pleasure.

He still doesn't sleep. The big dark eyes burned into his mind won't let him.

On the night of day seven suddenly Steven is back. He's back and Greg has never cried so hard in his life. He covers his son's forehead with kisses and clings to him until his arms ache and they weep helplessly into each other's arms, soon joined by Connie and the gems, and Greg swears on every star in the sky that he won't ever let Steven out of his sight again.

Steven explains in low, halting, stumbling words what happened. Why Lars isn't with him. How he escaped. What he did.

He weeps more and all Greg can do is hold him and fight off the waves of horror so like the ones he felt on the beach all those months ago, the ruins of a ship shaped like a hand littering the sand around then.

They tell the Barrigas. The pale, wan faces nod when Steven promises that they'll find a way to retrieve Lars. They don't believe him. Steven can tell, and Greg catches him blaming himself when they leave, and Greg catches him in another deep squeeze of a hug.

He has to get them out of here. Somewhere new. Somewhere isolated. Somewhere the slimy fingers of magical fate can't touch his child for at least a weekend.

He feels so small. So little, so lost, so swept up in the tides of a war that has been going on thousands of years before he existed, before _they_ existed. A war so vast it reached across the galaxy and plucked two boys off a boardwalk and then fucked back across the stars to punish them for things they didn't even fully understand.

A war that provoked a fourteen year old into giving himself up to be murdered. A war that killed a child and provoked the other into resurrecting him from the dead.

He pulls up vacation houses on his phone, and sets his jaw, and promises that even if he can't keep the hands of the diamonds out of his boy's life, he is going to be there to protect him no matter what he has to do to make it so, no matter how many emotions he has to shove and bottle away.

**Author's Note:**

> "I'll write a Greg and Rose story about the pregnancy next," I mused multiple times in my last oneshot. "I already know how that whole thing went down in my head," I added.
> 
> So anyway have a Steven and Greg parallel comparison fic? Yaaaaay?
> 
> (I can't be the only one who noticed they were each taken from one another at some point in this series.)


End file.
